Ivy Hawthorne has always felt like an outsider, but now she is starting to
wonder who—and what—she really is.

She can see people’s auras. Animals watch her wherever she goes, and
worst of all, sometimes her dreams actually come true.

But recently, things have gone from strange to downright
bizarre.

The animals have started following her. Strangers have started watching
her. And when she gets angry or upset, inexplicable things are bound to
happen.

But the craziest thing of all is the sudden arrival of Barrett Forbes, a
mysterious transfer student who finds her fascinating.

The more she gets to know Barrett, the more she learns about the dark truth
behind her lonely, isolated childhood. As she digs deeper into her past, Ivy
discovers the shocking realities about her lineage and where her destiny
lies.

Filled with magic, romance, and mystery, The Thorn Princess is the first
book in Bekah Harris’ captivating new series, the Iron Crown Faerie
Tales.

An
old screech owl was common enough in the mountains. What wasn’t so common
was
the way it watched her, its huge yellow irises round as saucers, its head
moving to follow her figure up the path to the dining hall, where breakfast was
already underway.

Ivy
had always been good with animals, but sometimes, the way they focused on her
was unsettling. Like right now. It was almost seven-thirty. The owl should have
been roosting in its nest, settling into sleep for the day.

She trudged past
the tree where it perched, its downy brown and white feathers puffed out
against the cold, as the main buildings of the Kingston Academy campus rose up
in the distance. The series of towering stone buildings loomed over her like
sinister shadows as the near-hidden sun touched a bleak winter sky. Locked away
from the rest of the world, the students who attended the historic boarding
school were protected in the safe arms of the campus by a tall iron gate that
separated the school from the treacherous mountain terrain and wildlife that
surrounded it. The spindles were too
close together for even a child to slide through, and the fence was too tall,
slick, and sharp to climb. Which was just how the parents and administrators
wanted it.

Unless you were
a squirrel or bird, there was no going in or out without getting stuck. Or
impaled if you managed to climb high enough.

The morning was
still and quiet. The only sounds were the rattling of naked tree branches and
the crunching of Ivy’s boots in the frozen snow. On mornings like this, Ivy
resented the school uniform requirement at Kingston. The wind tore through the
thin black leggings she wore beneath her pleated skirt, as she readjusted her
heavy bag that drooped toward the ground.

The
lone owl hooted as Ivy left it behind. Unable to help herself, she turned,
stopping to watch it for a moment. Her gaze connected with the owl’s, its
wizened expression examining her with a fixation that made her wonder if it
could see her future. Or maybe even her past. When she was a little girl, Nan
used to tell her stories about birds and other animals that could see into a
person’s soul. Nan believed it like gospel, but Ivy had always figured they
were just old wives’ tales. Folklore from the superstitious mountains where
they lived. But the owl’s penetrating gaze was enough to make her question
those beliefs.

Checking
her smartwatch, Ivy shook off the eerie feeling and hustled up the path until
she reached the sidewalk, which, mercifully, had been shoveled and salted. She
stomped the snow from her boots and rushed up the stairs to the dining hall.
When she opened the door, the smell of frying bacon and maple syrup filled her
senses, as she absently handed her meal card to Rhoda, the cashier who smiled
and said “Good morning,” just like any other day.

But Ivy’s nerves
sloshed in her belly as she approached the dining room. She had dreamed about
the dining hall last night. Like any of the places she saw in her dreams, she
was wary to enter. Taking a deep breath to calm her irrational anxiety, she
stepped into the room and scanned the scattering of round oak-colored tables
and chairs.

Most
of her classmates weren’t early risers, so in twenty minutes, they would be
scrambling from their beds and rushing to their eight a.m. classes. But Ivy
usually woke up early after a night of tossing and turning between restless
dreams, which had been the case that morning. The dreams were becoming more
frequent
lately, just like her animal sightings.

This morning it
had been an owl.

Yesterday, she
had seen a cardinal, which wasn’t altogether strange.

But the way it
had flitted behind her from tree to tree until she had walked inside had been
odd. A few minutes later, it had perched in the windowsill of her lit class,
peeking inside.

“There
you are!”

Jules McKinnon, Ivy’s best friend since the
early years at Kingston, waved at her from their usual table. She gestured to
the untouched plate in front of the empty seat beside her. She had piled on
French toast sticks, honey, and apple slices. Ivy’s favorite. Just as her
stomach growled, she stopped short, examining Jules. Her textured black pixie
was sticking out in all directions this morning, rather than being swept softly
to the side.

Oh, no.

If Jules had
actually made the effort to fix her hair, then she’d been up for more than the
ten minutes it took to throw on her uniform, brush her teeth, and walk to the
dining hall. Which also probably meant she’d been up for hours and hadn’t been
tempted to hit snooze five times. It meant she had been wide awake and
obsessing over something.

Ivy focused,
narrowing her eyes in an effort to see Jules’ aura, a fuzzy light that emanated
from most people in a variety of colors determined by their emotions. Ivy had
possessed the strange ability for as long as she could remember, though it
wasn’t something she advertised. Sure enough, Jules’s aura glowed in a dark
yellow halo that shone from her head and shoulders. She was worried. Probably
about her grades. Ivy learned a long time ago that, as smart as Jules was, she
would always freak out over tests, quizzes, grades, and her GPA. All the women
in her family had gone on to Hollins University, and Jules was determined to get
in, too, even if it caused her to have a nervous breakdown in the
process.

“I thought you
were never going to get here. I fell asleep studying last night like a
narcoleptic dumbass and am now doomed to fail Crenshaw’s lit quiz this morning.
Thank God I woke up at four. Anyway, you’re good at all this poetry crap. Tell
me…” She looked down at her notes. “What are the underlying Romantic elements
of the Lady of Shallot?”

“First of all,
it’s Shalott,” Ivy said. “Shallots are a type of onion.”

She dunked a piece
of French toast in honey, chewing while Jules went into full-on panic mode.

“Oh my God, I am
so screwed. I thought last year’s phi lit class was awful. But this semester?
British Poets? Just kill me! Crenshaw is
going to see to it that my four-point-oh is a pleasant dream of the past,
achieved and maintained for ten years but snatched away in an undignified
attempt to interpret poetry.”

“Dramatic much?”

“Not cool, Ivy.
Can’t you see I’m desperate? Why couldn’t this be calculus? I get
math.”

“Poetry is
mathematical,” Ivy said. “It’s about structure and pattern, rhyme, meter, and
rhythm. Anyway, stop freaking out. Just remember that the Romantic philosophies
of the day were about…”

Ivy lost her
train of thought. Her stomach cramped and twisted as he walked in. The boy from
the dream. She watched him as he moved past her with a confident gait and sat
at the fourth table from the coffee bar. Just as she had dreamed. Ivy blinked,
shaking her head. She tried to look away but couldn’t.

“About…?” Jules
glared impatiently until she followed the direction of Ivy’s stare. “Ah. I see
you’ve discovered Kingston’s latest flavor of eye candy.”

The boy was tall
and thin, but lean, not skinny. He looked completely out of place in the
required gray blazer and khaki pants. With skin the color of porcelain and dark
black-blue hair, he looked more like a leather jacket sort of guy than a prep
school student. His aura glowed from him in a soft red. Confidence. Strength.

It took a lot of
concentration, but Ivy had been seeing auras since she was a small child. Nan
called it “the sight” and had taught her how to read them. Had taught her never
to tell anyone that she could see them.

Just like he had
in the dream, the boy was surrounded by a red glow as he sat down. Her dreams
always seemed so real, and when she woke, Ivy always had a sense that she had
been to a different time or a different reality. But she didn’t often stare
down her dreams in the daylight.

About the Author:

Born and raised in the mountains of East Tennessee, Bekah Harris has been
writing since she could hold a pencil. The beauty of her home in the Appalachian
Mountains, along with the legends, myths, and folklore of that area, is what
inspires the unique plots and settings captured in her young adult fiction. In
addition to her love of all things fictional, Bekah is also a freelance writer and
editor, as well as a high school English teacher. When not working, Bekah can be
found at home making art with her son, as well as drinking coffee and watching
Netflix with her husband.

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

♦ ♦ ♦

Title: Of the
Blood

Series: Heir of Blood
and Fire, #1

Genre: YA Dark
Fantasy

Author: Cameo
Renae

Release Day: May 15,
2020

Cover Designer: Covers by Juan

♦ ♦ ♦

One malicious prince. Two rival kingdoms. And an innocent girl caught in the
crossfire.
Raised in a war-ravaged continent, temptation comes to Calla Caldwell in the form of a
charming and mysterious stranger. Giving in to his intimate seduction, her world is forever
changed by a single bite.
Calla quickly learns the handsome stranger is vampire prince, Trystan Vladu. His bite was an
attempt to claim and save her from a plot of vengeance generations in the making. However,
the claws of that ancient vendetta are scraping ever closer.
Thrust into a new nightmare by the Prince of the corrupt kingdom of Morbeth, Calla is captured,
tortured, and starved in the dank confines of his dungeon. While in captivity, she takes part in a
séance with a witch of light where she contacts a departed relative—a Princess of
Incendia—who bequeaths a gift to Calla that will tip the scales of good and evil . . . if she can
learn to harness it.
With a dark tapestry of secrets, lies, and murder unraveling around her, Calla must learn to
embrace the power roiling through her veins, or be snuffed out by the strangling fist of a
malevolent darkness.

♦ ♦ ♦

♦ ♦ ♦

I was born in San Francisco, raised in Maui, Hawaii, and now
reside with my husband in Las Vegas.I am a dreamer and caffeine addict who loves to laugh and loves to
read to escape reality.One
of my greatest satisfactions is creating fantasy worlds filled with adventure and
romance.It is the love and
incredible support of my family and fans that keeps me going.One day I hope to uncover my magic wardrobe and ride
away on a unicorn. Until then . . . I'll keep writing!

♦ ♦ ♦

♦ ♦ ♦

Sandra Kindt is always up for a good story, written or verbal, although there is that
cookbook she won in elementary school that hasn’t seen the light of day. But the times she’s been
caught reading historical novels with a highlighter—because there’s always something to
learn—should make up for that. After earning an MA in
communication, she taught Organizational Behavior at several universities and Stephen Covey’s 7
Habits of Highly Effective People in the corporate world. Her love of writing goes back to the journals
she started in the fifth grade, when she fancied herself Nancy Drew. She loves to hang out with her
four grown-up kids and six grandchildren. It’s like visiting the best parts of herself.

A mangy alley cat isn’t at the top of anybody’s adoption list. Nevertheless, when
Grandma Sandy scoops it up into her arms, her heart nudges her to take it home, and she listens.
Grandma always trusts her feelings.

Lots of tender care soon transforms the mangy cat into beautiful, round Chubbs. But
when she loses her sight, will she listen to her feelings like Grandma and learn to trust the one who
loves her most?

Thursday, April 2, 2020

There is
a treasure hunt with the prizes being
a $100 and $25
giveaway! The Treasure Hunt Questions will be based on the videos on the Author's
YouTube Channel and you can answer the questions and find the YouTube links in the
Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.

Ren Garcia is a Science Fiction/Fantasy author and Texas native who
grew up in western Ohio. He has been writing since before he could write, often scribbling alien lingo
on any available wall or floor with assorted crayons. He attended The Ohio State University and
majored in English Literature.

Ren has been an avid lover of anything surreal since childhood. He also
has a passion for caving, urban archaeology, taking
pictures of clouds, and architecture. He currently lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife, and their four
dogs.

Mysterious and elusive, Lady Chrysania of Bloodstein calls from
the ruins of her castle. She dwells in the dark, hiding her face, ravaged by an ancient curse. The only
way to break the curse is to win a game called Perlamum. If she loses, she dies. She looks to her Vith
kin in the west, begging for help acquiring the all-important pieces she needs to play the
game.Lord Kabyl of Blanchefort, his Ne-Countess Sammidoran, and his
cousins answer her call. However, collecting the Perlamum pieces for Lady Bloodstein is a deadly
game. They must face a host of perils:-The terrible Black Hat in the city of Waam who knows their
every move.-A hated rival on the planet Xandarr and the bewildering
labyrinth of Gods Temple.-The man from Shook who cannot be killed.-A family of vile bravos from the south.-The diabolical Dead Men of Mare, nigh invincible creatures
straight from an insane nightmare.To even the odds, Kay and Sam turn to a forgotten graveyard
deep in the Telmus Grove, and the great eminence resting there.Can Lady Chrysania of Bloodstein be helped, or, for that matter . .
.. . . can she be trusted?